We are delighted to announce that the Human Rights Law Centre and Doughty Street Chambers will be co-hosting a one-day training course entitled “Social Rights in Europe: Advocacy and Litigation”.
Led by international experts in the field, this session will provide practitioners, civil society, academics and others with information about social rights standards, mechanisms and avenues that have historically received relatively little attention in the UK and Europe but which are of growing importance in terms of legal practice, civil society advocacy and academic work.
The sessions will cover the key international and regional mechanisms for social rights advocacy and litigation, including the United Nations, Council of Europe and the European Union. Sessions will also address comparative social rights advocacy work and experience.
Confirmed instructors include:
VirgÍnia de Brás Gomes (former Chair of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights)
Virginia is a Senior social policy adviser in the Ministry of Employment, Solidarity and Social Security of Portugal. She was a member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights for 14 years and served as Vice-Chair, Rapporteur and Chair of the Committee. Co-rapporteur for the Committee’s General Comments nº 19, on the right to social security, and nº 23, on the right to just and favourable conditions of work. She also conducted training in treaty body reporting and on human rights in Africa, Asia and Europe, on behalf of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and was Distinguished Guest Lecturer in the LLM Program in Intercultural Human Rights at the St. Thomas University School of Law (2018 and 2019); Invited expert at the School of Regulation and Global Governance at the Australian National University / College of Asia & the Pacific (2015); and Faculty member of the Leadership Institute in Women’s Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2011 to 2015). As part of her training activities on economic, social and cultural rights, she was also a faculty member of the Human Rights Law Centre 2008 Summer School. She is the Chair of the Board of the Portuguese UNICEF Committee. Member of the International Advisory Council of the Equal Rights Trust and of the International Board of PWESCR (Programme for Women’s Economic, Social and Cultural Rights). Virginia published a number of articles in national and international publications, including Right to work and rights at work: is there a role for the human rights treaty bodies? in ILO 100: Law for Social Justice (2019).
Professor Jeff Kenner (Professor of EU Law, University of Nottingham)
Jeff Kenner is Chair of European Law at the University of Nottingham and a member of the Human Rights Law Centre. He is an expert in the fields of European Union law, employment law and social rights. Professor Kenner has provided advice and training for the EU Fundamental Rights Agency, the European Commission and the Council of the EU. He has served as Vice President of the inter-university Global Campus of Human Rights, 2016-2019, and Principal Investigator for the University of Nottingham's research team on the EU FP7 project FRAME (Fostering Human Rights Among European Policies), 2013-2017. Recent publications include: Precarious Work: The Challenge for Labour Law in Europe (Edward Elgar Publishing 2019, lead editor); Core and Contingent Work in the European Union (Hart Bloomsbury 2017, co-editor), The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights: A Commentary (Hart 2014, co-editor - new edition, 2020).
Susie Talbot (activist lawyer working on international economic, social and cultural rights and ecology; formerly Legal Director at ESCR-Net, Lawyer at INTERIGHTS)
Susie Talbot is a human rights lawyer who works with communities and advocates around the world to progress economic, social and cultural rights through strategic litigation, advocacy, capacity building, and engagement with UN treaty negotiations, committees and special procedures. As former Legal Director of ESCR-Net, she was responsible for guiding collective legal strategies for a human rights network consisting of over 280 NGOs, social movements and advocates across 75 countries. She has also worked at various NGOs including INTERIGHTS, Minority Rights Group International and the Kurdish Human Rights Project. Susie is currently working on corporate accountability advocacy (with the Feminists for a Binding Treaty coalition and as a Trustee of CORE) and recently founded the Anima Mundi Law Initiative to develop practical tools to embed human rights advocacy within ecological contexts and explore creative legal strategies to realign human activities with the natural world.
Professor Aoife Nolan (Professor of International Human Rights Law, University of Nottingham; Academic member, Doughty Street Chambers; Member, Council of Europe European Committee of Social Rights)
Aoife Nolan has been Professor of International Human Rights Law at University of Nottingham since 2012 and is Co-Director of the UoN Human Rights Law Centre. In November 2016, she was elected to the Council of Europe's European Committee of Social Rights, Europe’s leading economic and social rights monitoring mechanism, in November 2016. She has published extensively in the areas of human rights and constitutional law, particularly in relation to economic and social rights. Professor Nolan has acted as an expert advisor to a wide range of international and national organisations and bodies working on economic and social rights issues, including numerous UN Special Procedures, UN treaty bodies, the Council of Europe, the World Bank, and multiple NHRIs and NGOs. Her books include the prize-winning Children’s Socio-economic Rights, Democracy & the Courts (Hart, 2011), Human Rights & Public Finance: Budget Analysis and the Promotion of Economic and Social Rights (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2013), Applying an International Human Rights Framework to State Budget Allocations: Rights and Resources (Routledge: London, 2014), and Economic and Social Rights after the Global Financial Crisis (CUP, 2014). She has held visiting positions at academic institutions in Europe, Africa, the US and Australia. She is an Academic Expert member at Doughty Street Chambers.
Jamie Burton (Barrister, Doughty Street Chambers)
Jamie is a barrister specialising in public law, discrimination and human rights challenges to decisions concerning all aspects of the welfare state and social provision. Jamie’s main areas of practise are homelessness, community and health care, migrant rights, housing and social security. He is head of the Doughty Street Community Care and Health Team and is a leading authority on the Care Act 2014 and children’s and migrant’s rights. Jamie regularly appears in the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, and has acted in many leading cases. Jamie is also Chair of Just Fair, a UK charity exclusively focussed on the promotion of economic, social and cultural rights.
Tickets
Tickets can be booked online. The price of your ticket is £53 (includes VAT + Eventbrite Fee), in addition to lunch, and all tea and coffee breaks. You are also invited to stay for a drinks reception after the event, as the guests of Doughty Street Chambers. Reductions are available for multiple bookings from the same institution, for students and the unwaged.
While PGT and PGR students with a strong knowledge of human rights law may benefit from this course, it is not suitable for undergraduate law students.
Any queries should be directed to Agnes Flues at agnes.flues@nottingham.ac.uk